materfamilias

English

Etymology

From Latin māter familiās, mother of the household

Noun

materfamilias (plural materfamiliases or matresfamilias)

  1. The female head of a household
    • 1903, Luigi Villari, Italian Life in Town and Country‎, page 110-111:
      The materfamilias and her daughters do a good deal of the housework, and even open the front door on occasion.
    • 1990 June 1, Mary Shen Barnidge, “Who Killed the Dragon Lady”, in Chicago Reader‎:
      That my old-country materfamilias is actually Chinese--Mandarin Chinese, yet--is a negligible discrepancy.

Synonyms

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